Navin Kheth is co‑president of Anderson Venture Impact Partners, a student-led impact investment fund at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Founded in 2017 with $500,000 in seed capital, the program has been self-sustaining ever since. Through AVIP, students invest in startups focused on financial inclusion, health and wellness, education and workforce development, sustainability and community development, and housing.
Kheth is an MBA student graduating this year. As co-president, he educates fellow AVIP members on impact investing, advises on deal sourcing and leads networking efforts with like-minded organizations. Kheth grew up in rural Cambodia before coming to the U.S. to pursue his education. After he earns his MBA, Kheth plans to pursue impact investing for mission-driven, early-stage tech startups looking to scale.
What does impact investing mean to you and what made you decide to join AVIP?
Impact investing uses the discipline of venture finance to channel capital toward companies and projects that generate both competitive returns and measurable social or environmental benefit. At its best, it aligns incentives so profit flows to entrepreneurs whose products expand opportunity and resilience for underserved communities.
While advising VC‑backed companies in investment banking, I kept asking whether that same capital model could be directed to founders with lived experience in overlooked markets – people who know the problems firsthand and can build sustainable businesses to solve them. I quickly found out that I was not alone in this thinking.
When I chose to pursue my MBA at UCLA Anderson, AVIP and the Center for Impact were my key motivators. I was determined to spend the next two years studying how venture capital can unlock long‑term economic mobility for underserved communities.
What skills have you learned since joining AVIP? What is AVIP’s process for evaluating a company through an impact investing lens?
AVIP has shown me that impact investing stretches across the capital stack, from mission driven venture to private credit and catalytic capital, yet every approach anchors on a sustainable business model.
Navigating this broad scope has taught me the key levers linking financial resilience with measurable social return, as well as the ambiguity in how impact is defined and measured. Most importantly, I have learned to form conviction amid this ambiguity, a core skill for any impact investor. AVIP is structured to reflect this breadth and flexibility.
Student teams first build their own conviction around an investable area and craft an investment and impact thesis within one of five verticals: sustainability, health and wellness, financial inclusion, education and workforce, or affordable housing.
They then source deals through the Center for Impact network, referrals and independent research. Students set their own screening criteria for mission fit, market size, and measurable outcomes, conduct financial and impact diligence and present only when an investment recommendation meets both their return hurdle and their impact target.
What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions around impact investing?
Many still mistake impact investing for a single, unified discipline, or worse, for philanthropy masquerading as finance, assuming that social benefit must come at the expense of financial returns. AVIP exists to overturn that misconception by educating the next generation of investors on the rigorous thinking behind how capital solutions can drive social impact and by showing that social and financial outcomes can reinforce one another. Community resilience strengthens customer loyalty, widens markets and lowers risk, giving well‑run impact companies a competitive edge rather than a handicap.
Is there a particular impact area across AVIPs verticals that particularly excites you and why?
I am most motivated to drive impact within the sustainability and affordable housing verticals because they sit at the intersection of human dignity and planetary health. I want to back founders who imagine cities where clean air is the default, public transit is seamless and every family can afford an energy‑efficient home built with zero waste.
Technology is the most powerful lever for realizing this vision, whether through carbon‑negative concrete, modular housing that slashes construction costs, or data platforms that optimize urban mobility. Industrial progress is not our enemy; when guided by empathy, it becomes a force that elevates both people and planet. As investors and technologists, we carry a responsibility to channel ingenuity toward outcomes that strengthen communities.
What does the future of impact investing look like to you?
I believe the distinction between impact investing and traditional investing will fade; capital deployed without regard for social or environmental benefit will be seen as inefficient, leaving potential social returns on the table.
Markets will reward companies that embed resilience, equity and sustainability at their core, since their long‑term cash flows depend on the health of the ecosystems and societies they serve. Investing will be understood as a vehicle for collective progress, where profit and purpose move in the same direction and are indispensable to one another.
